- UV-C sensing on a budget: participants outlined how to turn an ordinary CCD into a 260 nm detector by swapping its protective glass for UV-transparent fused silica or sapphire, and suggested fluorescent dyes (e.g., Kremer Pigments Fluorescent Violet #94730) as cheap alternatives to sputtered phosphors.  
- nmz787 reported success with an open-source spectrometer built around the TCD1304 CCD (same sensor as Ocean Optics USB2000), using a quartz window and nitrogen purge to obtain stable UV measurements without moving parts.  
- Tadge Dryja’s Discreet Log Contracts (DLC) were introduced as a Bitcoin-native way to create conditional smart contracts that settle off-chain using oracle-signed data, preserving privacy while enabling derivatives and prediction markets.  
- A failed DARPA-scale effort to engineer E. coli for kilogram-scale secretion of butyrylcholinesterase as a nerve-agent prophylactic was cited as a cautionary tale—roughly 50 researchers lost their jobs when the economics did not materialize.  
- Participants debated the ethics of “virus-proof” recoded E. coli strains and the extreme scenario in which engineered pathogens could be released that only genetically modified humans could survive.  
- kanzure circulated a Vincit blog post describing how blind programmer Tuukka Ojala codes at 450 wpm using a screen-reader-centric workflow, highlighting accessibility techniques relevant to high-speed software development.  
- gwern’s essay on self-decrypting files—executables that carry their own decryption keys and reveal plaintext only when run—was discussed as a novel opsec tool with clear security trade-offs.  
- A longevity-research link dump included machine-learning models for predicting lifespan-extending compounds, evidence that p16^Ink4a-positive senescent cells shorten healthy lifespan, and a historical review titled “The Dream of Elixir Vitae.”